The Ciphered city

Halcyon never really slept. From Adrian Cross’s apartment window, the skyline looked alive, jagged towers glittering with neon. Down below, the streets churned with late-night traffic, restless bodies, and flickers of violence masked under the hum of commerce. It was a city where everything had a rhythm, a code — and Adrian had spent his whole life trying to decode it.

He sat at his desk, fingers drumming against a battered leather notebook filled with numbers and patterns only he could understand. A cold cup of coffee stood by the corner, untouched. It had been three years since he left his job at CyTech — and three years since the mistake that cost six people their lives. He didn’t let himself think about it, but the guilt never left.

Now he lived quietly, taking odd freelance cryptanalysis jobs: suspicious spouses with encrypted texts, corporations wanting their competitors’ code broken. It was meaningless work. Safe work.

Until tonight.

A knock rattled his door at 2:13 a.m.

Adrian opened the door to find Detective Iris Navarro standing in the hallway, lit by the sickly buzz of a flickering bulb. She wore a leather jacket over plainclothes, her hair tied back, her expression sharp but impatient.

“Adrian Cross?”

He hesitated. “Depends who’s asking.”

“Iris Navarro. Homicide. We need your eyes on something.”

He frowned. “It’s two in the morning. Call a department cryptographer.”

“We did.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “They couldn’t crack it. You can.”

Adrian wanted to slam the door, but Iris held up a photo. One glance froze him.

It showed a body sprawled in an alley, chest carved open, the skin etched with symbols. Not letters. Not numbers. Something older, familiar. Something Adrian had seen only once before — in a classified file at CyTech.

His throat went dry. “Where did you find this?”

“Subway district, east end.” She studied him. “So? You know it?”

Adrian swallowed. “Yeah. I know it.” 

The alley smelled of wet brick, trash, and blood. Yellow tape fluttered as uniformed officers kept gawkers away. Iris led Adrian past them, flashing her badge, ignoring the curious stares at the lanky civilian trailing her.

The victim was a man in his forties, lying beneath a rusted fire escape. The code carved into his chest shimmered faintly under the floodlights, deep grooves that bled into each other.

Adrian crouched, notebook in hand, sketching quickly. His pulse hammered. The sequence wasn’t random. It was structured, deliberate.

“What do you see?” Iris asked.

“A cipher. A substitution grid… but not just letters. Coordinates, maybe.” He paused, then glanced at her. “This isn’t a first-time killer. Whoever did this wants someone to solve it.”

“And that someone is you?” Her tone was skeptical, but her eyes were calculating.

Adrian didn’t answer. He finished sketching, then froze. His pen stopped mid-stroke.

The code wasn’t complete. It was missing a piece.

On the wall behind the body, faint under the grime, a second message had been painted in blood.

“THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST.”

Back at the precinct, Adrian sat in an interrogation room more out of procedure than necessity. Iris paced, tossing him a bottle of water.

“Talk to me. You recognized the symbols fast. How?”

Adrian hesitated. Revealing too much could drag him back into a world he swore off. But the sight of the body — the precision of the cipher — told him this wasn’t a one-off crime. It was a message.

“I saw something like this at CyTech,” he admitted finally. “An old system. Pre-digital. Derived from classical ciphers but layered with linguistic algorithms. Whoever made this wants it solved, but not by just anyone.”

“By you,” Iris said flatly.

Adrian shook his head. “No. Anyone with the right training could…” He trailed off. Because deep down, he knew the truth: the killer wasn’t leaving this for anyone. The precision was too personal. The structure mirrored a system Adrian himself had once worked on.

Iris narrowed her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Before he could answer, the door burst open. A uniformed officer handed Iris a note sealed in an evidence bag. She opened it, read once, then threw it on the table.

Adrian stared. His stomach dropped.

The note read:

“Hello, Adrian. Let’s see if you’re still as good as you used to be.”

Adrian’s hands trembled as he read the words again. The handwriting was precise, meticulous. The kind that belonged to someone who treated every stroke like a formula.

This wasn’t random. This wasn’t chance.

The killer knew him.

Iris leaned across the table, her expression unreadable. “Care to explain why our killer’s writing you personal letters?”

Adrian shut his notebook, heart pounding. He felt the city pressing in, the hum of Halcyon vibrating through its walls.

“It’s starting again,” he muttered.

“What’s starting?”

Adrian looked up, eyes sharp, voice low.

“The Cipher.”